Abstract:

This research examines the most common business development activities carried out by technology startups. The purpose of this study was to find out whether there is a set of common business development activities across successful technology startups. The main research question was formulated as follows: “What business development activities are most common among successful technology startups?”

This research was conducted as a qualitative study using the methodology of theory building from selected study cases. The sample consisted of six Finnish technology firms, which were interviewed twice, totaling 12 interviews altogether. The first interviews were an initial survey over email or phone, whereas the second interview was carried out as a face-to-face meeting. Each company was also cross-interviewed about the rest of the sample firms, to obtain an additional viewpoint to the history of each company.

This research was based on a combination of two types of case firms, according to their transition from startup to company: successful startups and underdeveloped startups. Among the case firms, certain business development activities were found to be exclusively run by the successful startups, where some others were exclusively run by their counterparts. The predominant business development activities among the successful startups were finding the product/market fit, focusing on a business-to-business (B2B) model, leveraging advisors, becoming international, and building strong customer relationships.

The results indicate that there seems to be a similar type of business development activities among successful technology startups, according to the data collected from the sample firms. Furthermore, the results incite to claim that there could be a connection between certain business development activities and the fact of success in the startup context. Consequently, this research could be used as a first step for investigating further, in order to find whether there could be a methodology for creating successful technology startups by executing those business development activities which are more likely to help the startup to succeed.